Scream

In “Scream VI,” the psychotic, knife-wielding serial killer known as Ghostface is set loose on the streets of New York City. Yawn. The former terror of the ...

“We’re in a franchise!” one of the Core Four explains and, indeed, “Scream VI” opens with a film professor yammering on about cliched movie tropes and ends with fight-for-your-lives slash-a-thon at a disused movie theater. There are fight scenes in a bodega and in a luxury apartment on the Upper West Side, but perhaps the best New York sequence is on a crowded subway train, where Ghostface is stalking in plain sight. And to fully enjoy this “sequel to the requel,” you need to have watched most of the others. The four main survivors from the fifth “Scream” are all here a year later — the Carpenter sisters, Sam and Tara (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) and the smug brother-and-sister duo played by Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown. Despite the change of scenery, “Scream VI” is less a sequel and more a stutter-step, a half-movie with some very satisfying stabbings but no real progress or even movement. But he’s lost in the big city, a slasher made small in his new playground.

Scream VI takes a meta-squared riff on the Scream series itself and delivers quickly, efficiently and oh-so-sharply.

Ortega, fresh off the first season of the Netflix sensation Wednesday, is easily the most skilled performer of the bunch, bringing real vulnerability to the underwritten Tara. This isn’t a delayed trip to the fireworks factory like Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (a clip of which is played here). But practically, this all amounts to some annoying bits of dialogue delivered by annoying characters that annoyingly interrupt what the filmmakers are actually annoyingly good at executing: executions, and lots of ‘em. Scream VI (ScreaVI, if we’re feeling as cheeky as the film’s poster) doesn’t reinvent the blade – though for a hot minute it half-convinces itself that it has done just that – but it does deliver the goods, quickly and efficiently and oh-so-sharply. Now six films in – with a healthy decade between instalments four and five – the Scream series has both established and rewritten its rule book to the degree of illegibility, much to the likely dismay of poor video-geek Randy (who only lived long enough to see part two). The sexually promiscuous are punished, the virginal “final girl” makes it to the end, the bad guy is always the one you least suspect.

When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. It was not surprising when Quentin Tarantino, ...

[died in 2015](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/01/movies/wes-craven-a-filmmaker-who-invaded-your-dreams.html), and was paid homage to in [the last “Scream” movie](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/movies/scream-review.html), skillfully directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.) In one of its gruesome kills, a knife doesn’t just go for the throat, it shoves it down and twists. “Scream” has always been as much of a whodunit as a slasher, so more characters do provide opportunities for misdirection, but the problem here is not just an excess of people. It could help a comedy, though, and perhaps that’s the best version of these movies, which would suggest that the filmmakers lighten up and ignore the die-hard horror nerds altogether, along with the snooty critics from The New York Times. This is the curse of franchise filmmaking. As the daughter of Billy Loomis (played by Skeet Ulrich), the killer in the original movie, whose ghostly presence returns here, she adds some new tension to the boilerplate disposable victims. There’s also a return of the character Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) These callbacks clutter up the movie even if they provide opportunities for those who binge watched the series on Paramount+ to horrorsplain to their friends and family. Moving from the well-appointed and brightly lit homes of small towns and the suburbs to the dark alleys of New York sounded like a desperate move (see [“Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan”](https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/29/movies/another-friday-the-13th-puts-jason-in-times-square.html)), but placing stalker sequences in crowds inspired some fresh thinking. Once a masked figure starts stabbing people, everyone looks askance at each other and starts breaking down the rules to surviving a horror movie. An ungenerous observer might see a connection between this opinion and the fact that Craven hated Tarantino’s first movie, “Reservoir Dogs,” so much that he walked out of a screening, only to be surprised by the director himself, asking what Craven thought. These horror snobs, and I count myself among them, know that Wes Craven can go for the throat, but with these movies, he chose not to. Side note: Never do that to a director or a critic.

If the last "Scream" movie made noise by wedding the old with the new, "Scream VI" reinforces how shrewd the producers were in casting the next generation, ...

Although the layoff helps explain the enthusiasm that greeted “V,” it’s naïve to think “Scream” will again experience lengthy periods of dormancy. As usual, the fewer questions asked the better, starting with how much blood someone can lose from multiple stab wounds and still be ambulatory. A year has passed since their last adventure with a killer Ghostface, which has left everyone with an understandable case of “trust issues.” Throw in a new venue and the same old thrills and kills, and Paramount should be slashing all the way to the bank. While that does provide some fresh wrinkles (on the subway, no one can hear you you-know-what), slicing and dicing up the Big Apple doesn’t do anything significant to shake up the basic formula. Still, given the focus on the younger contingent, the baton feels as if it has been passed.

While some are obvious, others are educated guesses. We break down which Ghostface committed which kill in every Scream movie.

When he goes back to take her out for good, Amber stabs Dewey in the chest with one knife and in the back with another. Richie seems to be the one to call Sidney, as the call is less hostile and Amber is in the closet waiting to pounce on Sid. It may seem logical for Amber to be the one to kill Vince (Kyle Gallner) since she and her friends are just kicked out of the bar where he dies, but the killer is most likely Richie. Dewey shoots her three times in the chest, but he knows the best way to be sure is to go for the head. He somehow disappears from the front lawn to give Sidney time to show up, then stumbles onto the front porch to die in front of her, Jill, and Kirby. Outside of her own home, Jill stabs Hoss (Adam Brody) in the back and immediately after, Perkins (Anthony Anderson) in the forehead. After playing cat and mouse in the parking garage, Rebecca (Alison Brie) is stabbed in the stomach and thrown off the roof onto a news van. Charlie stabs Olivia in the chest, through the hand, kicks her down, throws her across the room, stabs in the back/stomach 6 times, bashes her head through a window, and guts her. When officer Richards gets out of the car, Mickey overpowers him, throws him in front of the car, and floors it into some roadside construction where officer Richards is impaled in the head. Billy is definitely the Ghostface to kill Himbry (Henry Wrinkler), as Stu is with Tatum at the time. Maureen (Jada Pinkett-Smith) and Phil (Omar Epps) get free tickets to the movie, most likely given to them by Mickey. Gale shoots Billy and then once again Sidney finishes it with a shot to the head.

The meta horror series is back for another outing with Ghostface and a group of familiar victims trying to survive the killer's deadly rampage.

We all know horror icons Sidney, Gale, and the late great Dewey—but today we're toasting Scream's most memorable supporting players.

[this is Scream we’re talking about](https://gizmodo.com/screams-new-directors-on-keeping-secrets-stab-movies-1848335386)!) [The long-running horror series’ latest entry](https://gizmodo.com/scream-vi-movie-sequel-neve-campbell-ghostface-1849892446), [Scream VI, hits theaters on March 10](https://gizmodo.com/scream-6-movie-review-jenna-ortega-ghostface-horror-fil-1850193641). [everyone’s favorite Scream character is Ghostface](https://gizmodo.com/scream-6-horror-stabby-meal-experience-santa-monica-pho-1850182157)—encompassing all the knife-wielding maniacs who’ve worn the costume [over the past 27 years](https://gizmodo.com/scream-6-is-officially-a-go-from-the-team-behind-scream-1848476087)—followed closely by [Sidney](https://gizmodo.com/scream-6-neve-campbell-exit-paramount-pay-1849024069), [Gale](https://gizmodo.com/scream-5-will-bring-back-horrors-finest-tabloid-journal-1844573348), and [Dewey (RIP)](https://gizmodo.com/the-new-scream-knows-what-youre-expecting-and-surprises-1848338516).

Scream 4 turns the franchise cynicism inward for the most extreme meta horror movie experience possible from Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson.

The final act of Scream 4 offers a perverse riff on the idea of Jill as a final girl and Sidney as a slasher. In contrast, Scream 4 stays with Jill for about a quarter of an hour after she’s revealed as the killer. Even before Ghostface begins killing, there’s an unreality to Woodsboro in Scream 4 that feels far more pronounced than any of the narratives-within-narratives in the first three films. Scream 4 is a commentary on Ahead of its time, and even more than the films that followed, Scream 4 interrogates this nostalgia. [legacyquels](https://screencrush.com/the-age-of-legacyquels/)” — the tendency to build franchise sequels around the nostalgic return of older veterans — into high gear. (Scream 3, which was not written by Williamson but was directed by Craven, drops a lot of the abstraction to construct As a point of contrast, even iconic “ [scream queen](https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/jamie-lee-curtis-being-scream-queen)” Jamie Lee Curtis sat out extended stretches of the Halloween franchise. Scream 4’s cynicism about the state of the horror genre ultimately twists back on itself, to the point that it is cynical about its own cynicism. [a massive success](https://www.cbr.com/how-scream-saved-slasher-movies/), going on to reinvent the slasher in its own image in everything from Bride of Chucky to I Know What You Did Last Summer to Halloween H20. Metacritic flips the order of the bottom two, Scream 4 scoring [lower than Scream 3](https://www.metacritic.com/pictures/horror-franchises-ranked-worst-to-best/26). Scream 4 exists in a strange space within the larger slasher franchise.

The Scream franchise is heading to New York City. However, while this is a worthy follow-up to 2022's Scream, it doesn't make much use of its unique ...

The movie could have happened in San Francisco or Seattle or Boston without anyone really noticing, and it feels like something cool could have been done here to make such a drastically different city feel like more integral part of the proceedings. The marketing campaign made a big deal of Ghostface moving to the city, but the Big Apple isn't really a character in the film outside of one subway scene that could have happened on any metropolis public transit. Meanwhile, the survivors of Scream (2022) have created their own pod when we reunite with them in Scream VI. It's a different backdrop than Woodsboro, but it never feels like the crew needed to be in New York or that it added anything special to this Ghostface's kills or overall motive. We'll go ahead and tell you that the killer's time with a firearm is showcased in its entirety during the trailer and otherwise doesn't stray from their murder weapon of choice. The first rule you learn in screenwriting class is that a good movie comes with a surprising but inevitable end.

Melissa Barrera is queen in 'Scream VI,' teaming with Jenna Ortega to battle Ghostface in Manhattan in the horror franchise's latest entry.

The script of this team’s previous “Scream” outing felt a bit more incisive, cutting straight to the heart of the toxic fanboy matter. There’s a new “Scream” queen in town — [Melissa Barrera](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-11-01/la-vanguardia-latinos-in-entertainment) — and she stabs back. The closest analogue to “Scream VI” is “Scream 2,” which is directly stated by the film’s resident Randy (the first “Scream’s” horror expert and audience surrogate), his niece Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown). It’s bigger, shaggier and a bit messier than its predecessor, and while it bears other fun similarities to “Scream 2,” mentioning more ventures into spoiler territory. How can one be safe from Ghostface in a world of copycat murderers and an increasingly ironic and apathetic world? The centerpiece sequence — a subway packed with Halloween revelers — is a beautiful piece of suspense filmmaking, utilizing the sights, sounds and geography of the space to create an all-too-real sense of public terror that gestures toward the notion of bystander effect. From the beginning, it’s a Ghostface inception, the copycats folding into themselves, unclear who is targeting whom and why. While it’s a shame that Campbell [didn’t return due to an inadequate salary offer,](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-08-10/neve-campbell-undervalued-scream-6-pay-sexism) it was time to let Sidney ride off into the sunset and release her from Ghostface-chasing duty. As usual, the film opens with a call from Ghostface, who would like to play a game, this time elevating the horror nerd trivia to the level of the ivory tower, with references to a 20th century slasher-film studies class taught at Blackmore. [COVID-19 pandemic](https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fcalifornia%2Fcoronavirus-everything-to-know-right-now&data=04%7C01%7Ckevin.crust%40latimes.com%7C52633c0a516544dd252a08d9e81168f0%7Ca42080b34dd948b4bf44d70d3bbaf5d2%7C0%7C0%7C637795983749169191%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=EARyZgH1vGMtlQdur%2F61n5fLiwKXExOWtv3guJOFSn8%3D&reserved=0). Thankfully, “Scream VI” is a tasty slice. Even though with each new installment the “Scream” franchise creeps closer and closer to the fictional in-movie “Stab” franchise that these films are ostensibly skewering, writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick keep the blade sharp, while directors

If you don't mind being spoiled, here are the killers who wore the Ghostface mask in every Scream movie in the franchise.

On the other hand, Charlie was simply a pawn who was manipulated by Jill. By the end of the killings, Roman Bridger was revealed as not only the killer, but Sidney’s half-brother. Salt was also seeking revenge on Sidney for killing her son in the first movie. That unmasking became a central appeal of the final acts of each movies, as the killer was revealed to be someone the audience had known all along. What set Scream apart was the murder-mystery twist that the movies brought to the genre. Instead of a supernatural monster like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, the killer was a regular person cloaked in a generic Halloween mask.

This is a spoiler-free review of Scream VI, which releases in theaters March 15, 2023. “Rebootquels will continue until morale improves” would be a great ...

And while some of the praise belongs to the closeness the writers give us to the Core Four, a not insignificant amount of the credit needs to go to the aforementioned actors. The heart and soul of Scream 6 is that aforementioned Core Four (made up of the Meeks-Martin twins and the Carpenter sisters). Some of the set pieces in this chapter will take your breath away, whether it’s the immaculate representation of an unbearably claustrophobic subway car or the jarring illustration of a person’s obsession in the Stab trophy room. We’re not going to get into the nitty gritty of that monologue, but one thing the young Meeks-Martin highlights is that the gore must be amplified in a rebootquels’ sequel, and boy is it ever! This time it’s full meta, and the butt of the joke is Scream itself. But, while it is the Sidney Prescott of it all, it’s not what you think.

Six films in and this franchise can still surprise, at least when Scream 6 is focusing on its brutal set pieces as opposed to more perfunctory character ...

[Samara Weaving](https://www.denofgeek.com/samara-weaving/) (star of Radio Silence’s excellent Ready or Not) as a film professor, Tony Revolori as a rabid Stab fan, Josh Segura as Sam’s extremely supportive, but extremely secret, boyfriend, and Devyn Nekoda as Mindy’s girlfriend Anika. In addition to the aforementioned subway sequence, we get Ghostface using angled mirrors in a bodega to find victims and characters watching attacks from nearby buildings. While there are a few generic pirates and princesses, most are dressed as iconic horror characters: [Freddy Krueger](https://www.denofgeek.com/a-nightmare-on-elm-street/), [Jason Voorhees](https://www.denofgeek.com/friday-the-13th), and [Michael Myers](https://www.denofgeek.com/halloween/) are there, as are [Chucky](https://www.denofgeek.com/chucky/), [Pennywise](https://www.denofgeek.com/it/), and the Grady sisters from [The Shining](https://www.denofgeek.com/the-shining/). They’re joined by fellow survivors Mindy and Chad (Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding), children of Martha Meeks (Heather Mazzarello) and niece and nephew of franchise lore-keeper, the late Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy). The New York setting gives Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) an easy excuse to show up when Ghostface strikes, but her flinty reporter schtick is wearing thin at this point, even if her grieving the death of Dewey Riley (David Arquette) provides an interesting wrinkle. Even if the dialogue from screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick feels a bit perfunctory, the cast’s natural charisma carries the day. After staving off an attack by Stab fans determined to bring the movie-within-a-movie franchise back to basics, half-sisters Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter ( [Jenna Ortega](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/from-you-to-scream-where-to-watch-wednesdays-jenna-ortega/)) have left Woodsboro for New York City, where the latter wants to move on and enjoy the full college experience, and the former wants to keep things safe and quiet as possible. Heck, we even get a quick glance at Sam Neill’s reluctant Sutter Cane reader from [In the Mouth of Madness](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-horror-movies-that-may-owe-their-existence-to-h-p-lovecraft/). Heck, the original from 1996 opens with a pop quiz that rewards both film-literate audiences and poor Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) for her horror knowledge. Every time the movie cuts from one train car to another, highlighting the separation between characters, we wonder if the one left behind will meet their end. Every time the train goes through a tunnel, immersing both the characters and the audience in darkness, we tense up, wondering if Ghostface will strike. [Scream 6](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/scream-6-team-relieved-franchise-returns-to-numeral-titles/)’s third act, our heroes board a subway train filled with costumed partygoers.

Scream 6 doesn't achieve perfection, but by highlighting the newly dubbed Core Four, hitting all the right emotional beats, and dialing the brutality up to ...

And while some of the praise belongs to the closeness the writers give us to the Core Four, a not insignificant amount of the credit needs to go to the aforementioned actors. The heart and soul of Scream 6 is that aforementioned Core Four (made up of the Meeks-Martin twins and the Carpenter sisters). Some of the set pieces in this chapter will take your breath away, whether it’s the immaculate representation of an unbearably claustrophobic subway car or the jarring illustration of a person’s obsession in the Stab trophy room. We’re not going to get into the nitty gritty of that monologue, but one thing the young Meeks-Martin highlights is that the gore must be amplified in a rebootquels’ sequel, and boy is it ever! This time it’s full meta, and the butt of the joke is Scream itself. But, while it is the Sidney Prescott of it all, it’s not what you think.

The mid-to-late '90s was a strange time for film and television, and things were especially bleak for horror fans. Sure, there were the classics from the '70s ...

[Wes Craven himself could not stand](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/wes-cravens-last-interview-horror-788393/)) and the casting of Mike Vaughn as “The Voice” seemed like they were trying to be different, but only slightly. Blotevogel has mentioned](https://dramaquarterly.com/scream-of-the-crop/) that she was trying to show the dangers of social media in teenagers’ lives, but it wasn’t an effective subtextual element as it was merely a tool utilized to unravel the mystery, and not a part of the killer’s motivation. The result was a show that had several homages to different horror classics – the Brandon James plot that was the center of the first two seasons was a mix of the Lumis revenge plot of the original film with spattering of Jason Voorhees. In truth, there may have been a myriad of factors that the series had to deal with that a creative legend such as Craven, and the modern horror godfather Williamson wouldn’t have to put up with. Piper (Amelia Rose Blaire), while certainly one of the more interesting figures in the first season, was merely the light version of Gale (Courtney Cox) with a pinch of Roland (Scott Foley) and his familiar connection in Scream 3. The most successful chapters in the Scream films (and of course this is up for debate) often have very interesting and topical subtext to the motivation of the killers. Even one of the weaker installments in The genre, of course, typically caters to younger people, and predominantly features younger characters, but not to relive the same day they just had in high school before coming to the theater. [Scream 2](https://www.denofgeek.com/scream-2/), and his defense of movie violence turning him into a psychopath. It was caught up in teenage drama, rumors and bullying, and this was never the strength of any slasher movie. Much maligned sequels kept being released, but no one came to see them, and it was clear the slasher sub genre needed a shot in the arm. The mid-to-late ‘90s was a strange time for film and television, and things were especially bleak for horror fans.

As far as Scream sequels go, we've seen worse, but the wear and tear of the years are showing on Ghostface's mask.

With Montreal playing dress up as New York, it's hard to look past alleyways that don’t exist or the made-up stops that cover for other well-known locations, like Blackmore College in lieu of Brooklyn College at the end of the 2 and 5 lines. In Campbell’s absence, Cox enjoys more of the spotlight, finally getting a call from Ghostface and fighting another round with the killer. [Matt Bettinelli-Olpin](/cast-and-crew/matt-bettinelli-olpin) and [Tyler Gillett](/cast-and-crew/tyler-gillett)’s (aka [Radio Silence](/cast-and-crew/radio-silence)) newest chapter in the “Scream” franchise finds the latest generation of Woodsboro survivors setting up a new life in New York City, far away from the suburban shadow of Ghostface. [Guy Busick](/cast-and-crew/guy-busick) and [James Vanderbilt](/cast-and-crew/james-vanderbilt)’s script runs out of steam, but between the first kill and the movie’s climatic showdown, there are a number of suspenseful set pieces where Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett prove there’s still some life left in the series. As far as “Scream” sequels go, we’ve seen worse, but the wear and tear of the years are showing on Ghostface’s mask. [Melissa Barrera](/cast-and-crew/melissa-barrera)), her sister, Tara ( [Jenna Ortega](/cast-and-crew/jenna-ortega)), and twins Mindy ( [Jasmin Savoy Brown](/cast-and-crew/jasmin-savoy-brown)) and Chad ( [Mason Gooding](/cast-and-crew/mason-gooding)) prepare to escape, but they’re not fast enough for this new Ghostface.

Scream may “rigorously dissect and discuss the formula elements of its sub-genre”, but that doesn't get in the way of the witty parody and satisfying scares ...

Neve Campbell makes a strong heroine, and the bright Rose McGowan is genuinely in the spirit of Halloween in the role of the heroine’s about to-be-murdered (but also to-be-missed) best friend. Like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street and unlike Friday the 13th and Prom Night (lesser known, but a big influence on the whodunit angle), Scream has a strong junior cast and benefits from Craven’s interest in and liking for the kids. There is, however, a bit more depth to the parody, with former English professor Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson using the self-referentiality to discuss in quite high-flown tones the inter-connectivity of the movies and reality (though the archetypal horror movie town seen here is less convincing as a ‘more real’ level of fiction than the movie business of New Nightmare). This approach allows for likeable cheap jokes, like Randy’s “I never thought I’d be so grateful to be a virgin,” as he survives the climax and Sidney’s quickfire reaction when Randy says, “and this is the obligatory moment when the killer comes back from the dead for one last scare”. However, the burst of parody did not stem the flow of sequels and imitations, and the form was even revivified in 1985 by Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, which cannily injected a dose of the supernaturally irrational into the slasher film’s cliche-ridden unlikeliness. The slasher-movie cycle which more or less dates back to Halloween in 1978 and Friday the 13th in 1980 yielded far more films than the Universal cycle, and fast-forwarded to its Abbott and Costello phase in 1982, when a run of parodies (Whacko!, Student Bodies, Pandemonium, Saturday the 14th, National Lampoon’s Class Reunion) appeared.

Did you know that The Walking Dead universe has two ties to the Scream franchise? There are actually two, Nico Tortorella and Roger Jackson.

Kyle Gallner portrayed Zach in season 4 of The Walking Dead as the boyfriend of Beth (Emily Kinney). He is the character who tried to guess what occupation Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) had before the outbreak. In the Scream franchise, Jackson is known as The Voice, who voices Ghostface. In Scream 4, Trevor, like most of the characters in the Scream movies, meets a brutal end. His character had a happy ending in the World Beyond story, but Trevor, from the Scream movie, wasn’t so lucky. In World Beyond, Felix lived and worked as the head of security for the Campus Colony located in Nebraska.

S'il y a bien une actrice qui est passée de l'anonymat (partiel) à la célébrité en 2022, c'est Jenna Ortega. De son rôle tertiaire dans la série You sur ...

Jenna Ortega est en passe de devenir la “Scream Queen” de toute une génération. Une Scream Queen (expression pouvant se traduire par “reine du hurlement”) est une actrice interprétant généralement une jeune femme victime dans un film, souvent d’horreur. S’il y a bien une actrice qui est passée de l’anonymat (partiel) à la célébrité en 2022, c’est Jenna Ortega.

For decades, LGBTQ2+ horror fans were left to decipher subtle hints of queer representation in the Scream franchise. It was more than 25 years before the ...

When she takes on the role of a horror fan within the film, she is given the chance to show off her skills. Mindy might be the smartest of all the characters on screen but also the wittiest and most self-assured. She also has a girlfriend, and many of their shared scenes involve the two kissing without a care in the world. Horror movies have recently been empowering queer audiences when they see queer characters who are strong, capable, and can survive the terrors of a demented psychopath. At one point, she quips, “It’s a sequel to the requel,” even making fun of the very movie she’s in. In 2022, the “requel” was born with the fifth installment of Scream, and with it came a character who openly and unapologetically displayed her queerness.

Jamie Kennedy's character of Randy Meeks was killed in Scream's first sequel. The franchise would be even better if he was still around.

He might have the same genre frustrations, and with that, like he was Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face, have been able to decipher everything in a conversation or two. He is like a ghost that hovers over the heroes of every sequel, silently guiding the way on how to survive. While he was not as physically strong as the other three, he could have been the brains to their brawn, taking his knowledge of movie rules and using it to solve the mystery Colombo style. [Timothy Olyphant](https://collider.com/tag/timothy-olyphant/)) is revealed to be one of the killers. [Randy would've had just as much fun in the fifth Scream](https://collider.com/scream-5-review/). They share the same mom, one who had tried to make it in Hollywood, and who had abandoned him. “I think everyone I know would say Randy because he kind of met an untimely demise in the middle of the film. Bridger was so hurt that he was the mastermind behind Billy and Stu's mayhem. Randy is always one step ahead, so much so that it makes you wonder if he's the killer, and as we learn in the end, he was not Ghostface. In the first Scream film, Randy's character is just as important to the plot as Sidney, Gale, and Dewey. [Scream succeeded partially due to its meta view](https://collider.com/best-meta-horror-movies-ranked/#1-scream) which saw its characters knowing that they were in a situation playing out like a horror movie, all the while falling victim to the same tropes. [Scream](https://collider.com/tag/scream/) films focused on the same trio of legacy characters.

Initiated in 1996 by director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson, the Scream films are horror movies about horror movies about horror movies.

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